For me, one of the main reasons for growing a garden is to focus on the things that I love to eat. Winter sowing chickpeas is a great way to ensure that I’m able to do exactly that. While I don’t have the healthiest eating habits, I absolutely love chickpeas in any form. From stews to roasted, chickpeas are something I’ve always wanted to grow at home. After a failed attempt at growing this delicious crop last year, I’m fairly certain that I’ve finally figured out exactly what needs to be done. In many ways, growing chickpeas is very similar to growing garden peas, in that they thrive when the…

In my last post, I mentioned that the weather here has been absolutely frigid. Well, a couple days have passed and in true crazy weather fashion, our temperatures are now into the 60s. I should mention that that is very warm for this time of year, as our last frost date is usually at the end of April and into May. Nevertheless, let’s take a quick look at the progress and loss in the unheated hoophouse and in the garden. Before getting into the unheated hoophouse, let’s look around outside. First, the drumstick allium bulbs have started to grow. I know that these are the drumstick alliums because of their…

Over the past week or so, we’ve been getting absolutely blasted with cold weather and freezing temperatures. Up until now, our winter weather had been relatively mild; something which is very common here in my zone 6b/7 garden. That all changed about two weeks ago, however, when the snow began to fall and the nightly lows starting dipping into the single digits. Let’s take a closer look at our winter flowers. With about eight inches of snow headed in my direction, I started the process of “locking down” the hoophouse, covering the plants with row covers, and hoping that everything would survive. Of course, it couldn’t just snow – we…

CHECK OUT OUR SOAP SUBSCRIPTION AND 50% OFF SALE! CLICK HERE! I’ve had a long and troubled relationship with snapdragons. Snapdragons have always been one of those flowers that just wouldn’t grow the way I wanted. I’ve seen those “real” flower farms, with rows and rows of tall snapdragons – I wanted that! Over the last four or five seasons, I had tried virtually everything I could think of to grow the best snapdragons possible. I tried sowing snapdragon seeds indoors. While this method does work for many people – especially those with green thumbs – it doesn’t work for me. I don’t own grow lights, and without them, the…

CHECK OUT OUR SOAP SUBSCRIPTION AND 50% OFF SALE! CLICK HERE! I’ll be the first to admit that love-in-a-mist has never been one of my “must have” flowers. Having never grown it before, I didn’t really know what to expect the first time I grew it. I mean, I knew that it was weird and kind of funky looking, but many times my impression of flowers will completely change after I grow them. The same was also true for nigella. Aside from the weird flower and seed pod shape, love in a mist has this cool characteristic about them that makes water droplets gather on the plant after it rains…

Since first growing feverfew, it has quickly become one of my absolute favorite flowers. Not only are they insanely easy to grow, but their cold tolerance makes them a sure winner for the cut flower farm (and home flower garden). Though feverfew is often grown as an annual, many actually consider it to be a short-lived perennial. Starting feverfew from seed is also extremely simple. While I’ve heard some people say they don’t need it, I prefer to cold stratify my feverfew seeds in order to get the best germination possible. To do this, all I do is place the seed package in a ziplock bag and then place it…

Every year, I plant florist mums. I’m terrible at growing them, but I can’t resist. They’re so beautiful, and they always bloom when nothing else does. However, each year, I always neglect them. They grow quite slowly early in the season and soon they become lost in the weeds. The same thing happened this year, but still, they’re blooming – and they’re gorgeous. I’ll be cutting these for a flower arrangement to enjoy on these cold fall days!

It’s no secret that roselle has long been one of my favorite plants. Though it has many uses, I personally love to grow it for use in the cut flower garden. Today, I’ll be saving some roselle seeds for next year. The process is super easy. I save seeds for many different types of flowers each year, mainly because some of them are hard to find or expensive. Roselle is often one of these plants. One packet of seeds can cost up to $4.50 – which is wayyy more than I would like to pay. By harvesting my own seeds, I’ll save a little cash – and eventually hope to…

I first became interested in growing snowdrops after writing an article about them on the Gardening Know How website. Did you know that I’m a contributing writer there? Anyhow, before that article, I really didn’t know anything about them. After finding out that they’re an early spring bloom (also prone to some naturalization), I knew that I needed to try growing them myself. Admittedly, I was drawn to the variety ‘flore pleno’ for their super cute double flowers. I’ll be really interested to see what they look like in the garden, as I’ve read that many of these flowers usually nod downwards toward the ground. To plant these tiny bulbs,…